Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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460. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment when a company (details supplied) will provide the design for the 300,000 premises included in the agreement with his Department for the roll-out of broadband; his views on whether the commitment will be met on the date agreed; if a delay in providing the detailed design will cause a delay in awarding the contract for the national broadband scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11409/18]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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In April 2017, I signed a Commitment Agreement with eir in relation to its plans to provide high speed broadband to 300,000 premises in rural areas on a commercial basis. eir has recently reconfirmed their commitment to this programme both publicly and via direct correspondence to myself. Information on eir's planned rural deployment is available at/. A copy of the Commitment Agreement is available on my Department’s website www.dccae.gov.ie. Quarterly updates on eir's rural deployment are published on this website. eir has passed a total of 121,000 premises as of 31 December 2017.

Officials from my Department meet with eir on a monthly basis to review the company’s performance on the on-going rollout by a number of sub-milestones. One of these sub-milestones is the number of premises for which a detailed design has been completed which is an on-going process for eir.

Figures for the number of premises for which detailed designs have been completed are submitted to officials from my Department at the monthly meetings described above. As of December 2017 eir had completed detailed designs for over 197,000 premises.

As mentioned previously my Department is in regular contact with eir in relation to their ongoing deployment and the Commitment Agreement and will continue this engagement with the aim of ensuring the requirements of the Commitment Agreement are met.

The detailed design process for eir’s on-going rural deployment is entirely separate from the National Broadband Plan procurement process and will have no impact on the awarding of a contract for the NBP State Led Intervention Network.